SILVER DOLLAR CITY
& WHITEWATER BRANSON
Branson, MO
Herschend Family Entertainment Corp.
Review - Fire In The Hole (2024)
 Park News - (9/7/2026) Silver Dollar City gives folks “pumpkin to talk about” as one of its brightest festivals of the year gets glowing soon. The gourd times roll at Harvest Festival presented by Humana from Sept. 11 through Oct. 31, with acres of crafts by day and more than 20,000 pumpkins aglow at night!
Before the nighttime glow takes over, Harvest Festival hosts dozens of visiting craftsmen daily who demonstrate pioneer leatherwork, copper art, jewelry making, artistic pumpkin carving, hand-painted décor, woven rugs, stained glass, whimsical upcycled wind chimes and much more.
 As the sun goes down, Pumpkins In The City® presented by Mercy lights up the 1880s theme park with thousands of glowing pumpkins and no-scare family fun around every corner. Pumpkins are creatively carved and perfectly placed throughout City streets, with an all-ages dance party and character meet and greets in Pumpkin Plaza.
There’s a pumpkin-perfect picture opportunity everywhere you look, starting with a stroll beneath the two-story, lantern-filled Canopy Sky or a walk through Foggy Hollow. A three-story pumpkin greeter welcomes guests into a gorgeous gourd display of towering pumpkin sculptures. Even bigger fun unfolds across the park at the Garden of Giants with pumpkins weighing more than 1,000 pounds!
Meanwhile, cowboys return to the Carousel Barn for the Cowboy Emporium, featuring Western-inspired crafts and a showcase of the acclaimed artwork of Yellowstone and Gunsmoke star Buck Taylor on select dates. Across the street, cowboy cooks demonstrate their favorite recipes each day of the festival, with a chuck wagon cook-off to end each afternoon.
The festival also brings three huge country music concerts to the park’s Echo Hollow® Amphitheatre presented by Arvest. Grammy-winning country group Diamond Rio takes the stage Sept. 12, followed by country hitmaker Aaron Tippin on Sept. 19 and Missouri native and multi-platinum recording artist Sara Evans on Sept. 26.
The autumn food offerings are packed with pumpkin spice! From pumpkin funnel cakes to warm apple dumplings topped with pumpkin caramel sauce and ice cream, there’s something sweet for every festival foodie. Fall flavors take a savory twist with offerings like pumpkin spice rubbed ribs, toasted garlic knots with pumpkin cream cheese and chicken & sausage gumbo with cheddar grits.
(7/1/2026) It may be summer but Silver Dollar City has confirmed that they are working on a new interactive parade for the winter holiday season, to be called Silver Dollar City’s Stars, lights & Christmas Nights Parade.
“Twice the length of the park's previous holiday parade, the spectacular production invites guests to do more than watch the magic pass by. They’ll be immersed in the magic, handing letters to Santa's elves, sharing in cherished Christmas traditions and journeying from joyful holiday scenes to a moving Nativity finale celebrating the true meaning of the season.”
The new parade will first launch to guests at the park on Nov. 7th, 2026.
Goodbye Thunderation - (5/28/2026) Silver Dollar City had added some fun theming to the entrance of Thunderation for the coaster’s final season… as well as dropping teasers for what is coming next!
(2/16/2026) Don’t say that we didn’t warn you back in June 2025 that the 2026 season may be the last for Thunderation… because Silver Dollar City just confirmed that it is. According to the post from the park, after 33 years, Thunderation will retire at the very end of the 2026 season, with the last day to ride being Jan. 2, 2027, barring any issues.
2027 - New Resort Hotel - (8/22/2026) Attractions Magazine has posted a look from inside the new Silver Dollar City Resort hotel project this week, along with details as to how the property will “extend the experience of the theme park beyond its gates.” Follow the link to check out several new pictures taken on site as well as some video footage of the resort that will be ready to open sometime in early 2027.
(3/21/2026) Silver Dollar City says that they have lifted up the final rooftop beacon into place on their new Silver Dollar City Resort hotel. While the 262-room hotel itself won’t officially be ready to open to guests until 2027 the “crowning” construction milestone is a huge one for the theme park, as this is their very first resort property.
(12/13/2025) For anyone curious, a picture of the current progress on the new Silver Dollar City resort hotel was posted to SDCFans a few hours ago.
(7/26/2025) Some great pictures of the steel rising for the new Silver Dollar City Resort Hotel can be found below, posted on FB by the Gum Family Adventures page.
(4/16/2025) A local news station stopped by Silver Dollar City this week to check out what’s new and captured an interesting photo of the site where the new Silver Dollar City Resort hotel will be located. One reason we really haven’t seen much in terms of construction photos is because crews have been working to flatten out the top of the hillside location where the resort hotel will sit. According to the report the crews have taken off more than 70 feet off the top and are now working on the foundation work for the new resort.
As promised, the location will provide incredible views of the nearby Ozark Mountains and Table Rock Lake from the guest rooms when it opens near the end of 2026.
(10/18/2024) Silver Dollar City announced that they had a new name yesterday afternoon and are now calling themselves, “Silver Dollar City Parks & Resorts”. This is the first step of a half-a-billion dollar improvement plans for the famous theme park that will expand with the development of 1,200 acres of property next to the park, starting with a 262-room resort hotel that will overlook the Ozark Mountains and Table Rock Lake. The new resort has already started construction and is slated to open in late 2026.
So what does this mean for Silver Dollar City? For those who know the industry and that the company behind Silver Dollar City (Herschend Family Entertainment) is also the owner of Dollywood, none of this should come as a surprise. Over the past decade we’ve seen Dollywood grow by leaps and bounds, adding two resort hotels with plans on deck to add even more in the future, as well as major expansions to the theme park in response to the overwhelming positive growth there. Clearly the time has come for Silver Dollar City to start borrowing from Dollywood’s playbook and evolve the Branson park to have the same style offerings and amenities that have pushed Dollywood to the next level.
While the expansion of Dollywood was almost considered more of an experiment at first to see if the demand was there, clearly Herschend has used everything they’ve learned from their Tennessee resort and and this knowledge will propel the Branson property in all the right ways.
 2027 - Miner’s Mountain Express - (8/23/2026) Take a virtual spin on the new Miner’s Mountain Express coaster coming to Silver Dollar City in 2027. The new themed mine train coaster will serve as the anchor attraction to the new Daredevil Pass section of the park, offering a 3:18 minute long ride experience that will hug the natural contours of the Ozark Mountains along 3,553 feet of track, featuring 15 moments of airtime along the way.
(8/15/2026) Silver Dollar City has announced Miner’s Mountain Express, an all new mine train style roller coaster coming to the park in 2027. Perfect for the entire family, the ride’s theme ties into the real life history of the Marvel Cave that lies under the park. The new roller coaster is from Mack Rides and will be over three minutes of thrills packed into over half a mile of track, in search of a lost entrance into Marvel Cave.
 |
???? - Outlaw Run Update - Wild Rumor - (4/9/2024) Consider this something more of a “Wild Rumor” for the time being, but according to an anonymous tipster, Silver Dollar City’s next coaster project may be may actually be a complete refurbishment or another existing park ride. In this case, the tipster points to Dollywood as an example, as the chain’s other RMC replaced the majority of the ride’s original RMC “Topper Track’ with I-Box style full-steel beam track instead.
At the time, this was done to Lightning Rod because sections of the ride’s track were taking a bit of a beating, which was in-turn doing a number to the support system as well, so the choice was made to upgrade to the stronger I-Box track option. According to this new rumor, and many guest reports, Outlaw Run has been getting a bit rough despite their best efforts and now they may be considering a similar upgrade for it as well.
Just something to keep in mind as a possibility in the not too distant future. Stay tuned!
Screamscape Review -
2024 - FIRE IN THE HOLE
(3/29/2024) Screamscape was invited to attend a special preview of the all new FIRE IN THE HOLE attraction at Silver Dollar City this week. While I wasn’t able to attend myself, I was able to send our good friend Randal out to give it a spin for us. This worked out great as Randal has also visited Silver Dollar City many times in the past and was very familiar with the original Fire version of Fire in the Hole, which this has now replaced. I’ve got his review of the ride below along with an official on-ride video provided by the park that mixed POV with Reverse POV footage of them riding, giving us our first look at the all new state-of-the-art dark ride/coaster experience.
–
The new Fire In The Hole at Silver Dollar City does not disappoint. When the original ride was reaching the end of its service life, the park started making plans 10 years ago to build a new version and one of the first steps was to create the new Fireman's Landing. With the opening of the new Fire In The Hole, the area has been renamed the Fire District. Nearby the entrance are two new shops, Sadies Pretzel Cafe which features foot-long pretzel dogs and brats, pretzel sandwiches and of course, hand twisted pretzels. Around the corner is Flanders Dry Goods, which sells a variety of souvenirs based on Fire In The Hole, including for fans familiar with the ride, Red Flanders famous pants. An assortment of other items including candy, snow globes, t-shirts, stickers and magnets are among some of the new offerings. And an all-new live character, Sadie Flanders joins the cast of existing Silver Dollar Citizens. She'll be out and about at different times in the Fire District and near her Cafe and Flanders Dry Goods.
The ride itself is all new and glistening, but retains an almost identical layout, including the three drops the original ride was known for. The storyline is the most improved new feature of the ride, with a clearer tale of the night the Baldknobbers set the town on fire. This is achieved through new dialogue from the characters inside the ride and with onboard audio. There are three main Baldknobbers characters now in the storyline; Patches, Bugs and Wiley. They are not as intimidating as the original Baldknobbers were for younger children and definitely give that bumbling, slapstick type of villain feel that the park was going for, but you still get the feeling that they are a bunch of trouble.
The drops are much more family friendly and smoother, but still fun and thrilling and have been enhanced. The Kinney Bridge has had its "collapse" restored so that when the train goes down the drop, the bridge appears to collapse. The second drop (the train scene) now makes sense in the story line, as a mischievous Baldknobber throws a switch and sends the rescue pumper train headed straight for it. The locomotive of the train actually looks like a locomotive now and steam bellows out, obscuring the second drop, adding to the thrills. The third and final splashdown drop makes sense now too, as the townsfolk send a charge to the water tower, blowing it up to put out the fire. Coming out of the splashdown as the pumper wagon train makes its way to the unloading platform, you see the Citizens of Silver Dollar City celebrating on a screen. Yes, this ride now uses a FEW screens on the ride, but there are only three, and they add to the experience and enhance it instead of being the sole focus.
Overall the ride is solid. My only complaint is that some of the dialogue leading between the fire scene of the cabin up to the Kinney Bridge is hard to hear. There's just a tad bit too much going on. Fans of the old ride will recall hearing the "Fire In The Hole Song" a couple of times during the ride. This is my only complaint. It is not present anywhere in the new ride. I think instead of ALL that dialogue on the track between the Cabin and the Kinney Bridge, they could play it for say about 5 seconds. There is some dialogue necessary to set up the scene as you come up on Kinney Bridge, but other than that, I'd personally love to hear the updated version of the song that was created for the ride in this area.
Other parks looking to recreate or update an older, beloved attraction should look to Silver Dollar City and the New Fire In The Hole for guidance. They kept the ride basically as it was and really enhanced it with today's available technology. If you're going to call a beloved ride a name that evokes the past and nostalgia, it needs to be that ride in feel and spirit. With this new version, fans of the old ride and new riders will all be hollering "Fire In The Hole" as they drop on the ride's last plunge. And that makes me very happy.
|
